Revised Common Lectionary (Complementary)

Psalm 71

¹ In You, O Lord, do I put my trust and confidently take refuge; let me never be put to shame or confusion!

² Deliver me in Your righteousness and cause me to escape; bow down Your ear to me and save me!

³ Be to me a rock of refuge in which to dwell, and a sheltering stronghold to which I may continually resort, which You have appointed to save me, for You are my Rock and my Fortress.

⁴ Rescue me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the grasp of the unrighteous and ruthless man.

⁵ For You are my hope; O Lord God, You are my trust from my youth and the source of my confidence.

⁶ Upon You have I leaned and relied from birth; You are He Who took me from my mother’s womb and You have been my benefactor from that day. My praise is continually of You.

²⁰ After all this, when Josiah had prepared the temple, Neco king of Egypt went out to fight against Carchemish on the Euphrates, and Josiah went out against him.

²¹ But [Neco] sent ambassadors to [Josiah], saying, What have I to do with you, you king of Judah? I come not against you this day, but against the house with which I am at war; and God has commanded me to make haste. Refrain from opposing God, Who is with me, lest He destroy you.

²² Yet Josiah would not turn away from him, but disguised himself in order to fight with him. He did not heed the words of Neco from the mouth of God, but came to fight with him in the valley of Megiddo.

²³ And the archers shot King Josiah, and the king said to his servants, Take me away, for I am severely wounded.

²⁴ So his servants took him out of the chariot and put him in his second chariot and brought him to Jerusalem. And he died and was buried in the tombs of his fathers. All Judah and Jerusalem mourned for Josiah.

²⁵ Jeremiah gave a lament for Josiah, and all the singing men and women have spoken of Josiah in their laments to this day. They made them an ordinance in Israel; behold, they are written in the Laments.^(A)

²⁶ Now the rest of the acts of Josiah and his deeds, according to what is written in the Law of the Lord,

²⁷ And his acts, from first to last, behold, they are written in the Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah.

19 While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul went through the upper inland districts and came down to Ephesus. There he found some disciples.

² And he asked them, Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed [on Jesus as the Christ]? And they said, No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.

³ And he asked, Into what [baptism] then were you baptized? They said, Into John’s baptism.

⁴ And Paul said, John baptized with the baptism of repentance, continually telling the people that they should believe in the One Who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus [having a conviction full of joyful trust that He is Christ, the Messiah, and being obedient to Him].

⁵ On hearing this they were baptized [again, this time] in the name of the Lord Jesus.

⁶ And as Paul laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them; and they spoke in [foreign, unknown] tongues (languages) and prophesied.

⁷ There were about twelve of them in all.

⁸ And he went into the synagogue and for three months spoke boldly, persuading and arguing and pleading about the kingdom of God.

⁹ But when some became more and more stubborn (hardened and unbelieving), discrediting and reviling and speaking evil of the Way [of the Lord] before the congregation, he separated himself from them, taking the disciples with him, and went on holding daily discussions in the lecture room of Tyrannus from about ten o’clock till three.

¹⁰ This continued for two years, so that all the inhabitants of [the province of] Asia, Jews as well as Greeks, heard the Word of the Lord [concerning the ^[a]attainment through Christ of eternal salvation in the kingdom of God].